Linguistic purism in the Korean language

Both in North and South Korea, there have been movements to promote linguistic purism in the Korean language. Both movements seek to deter the usage of loanwords, whether they are already prevalent or not yet introduced to the Korean language. In both countries, removing the Japanese influence from loanwords has been of primary interest, although the specific policies differ between the countries.[1]

Linguistic purism in North Korea

North Korea is known for its purification of most loanwords, which contribute to a large portion of the North-South differences in language. Unlike South Korea, where hanja has been intermittently used in texts, North Korea abolished the usage of Chinese characters in 1949.[1] Many loanwords consisting of hanja, especially academic words that were introduced during Japanese colonial rule, were refined into pure Korean. Some examples include:[1]

Linguistic purism in South Korea

In South Korea, the National Institute of the Korean Language maintains the list of refined (purified) language.[2] Loanwords are selected periodically so that a refined version is created and voted online.[3]

Notably, loanwords from Japanese that were introduced to Korea during the Japanese imperial rule have a political meaning of colonization and are often subject to purification. Some words that were transliterations of Japanese words were refined in 1948:[1]

A recent example is the Korean spicy chicken dish dakdoritang, the naming origin of which has been suggested as a Japanese-Korean hybrid (dak(닭) means chicken in Korean, whereas dori(とり) means bird in Japanese). The refined word dakbokkeumtang (닭볶음탕) has been suggested, with some controversy.[4]

Some critics of the movement argue that, instead of forcefully finding an equivalent translation for every loanword, the movement must promote the usage of widespread loanwords.[5][6]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Differences in linguistic purism in the North and the South
  2. ↑ List of refined words
  3. ↑ Online voting of loanword refinement
  4. ↑ Controversy on dakbokkeumtang
  5. ↑ Urigeul Barosseugi (1992) ISBN 8935600571, 9788935600571
  6. ↑ Obituary: Lee O-Deok, Children's writer and champion of spoken writing 26 Aug 2003 Dong-A Ilbo]
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